The Staleness of Phantasm 4 (1998): This Is Getting Old - Episode 61

Remember the thrill of picking out the weirdest horror flick from your local video store? This week, we're joined by our friend Brian on the Dumb, Cool, Weird Podcast for a hilarious trip down memory lane, recalling the campy charm of the Phantasm series. Listen as Brian shares his insights on the whimsy of these films and the nostalgic impact they had on our childhood. We share some side-splitting laughs about Bruce Campbell's agent's wise decision-making and chuckle over absurd moments like Reggie's infamous skullet and unexpected romantic blunders. 

Journey with us as we dissect Phantasm IV, a movie that delights with its oddball storyline and nostalgic special effects. We chat about the cleverness of B-list actors like Bruce Campbell and lament Hollywood's CGI addiction at the expense of originality. Expect an uproarious discussion on everything from interdimensional undertakers to time travel, and hear our amusing take on a convention mishap involving furries. If you're up for a playful jaunt through cinematic absurdity, laced with our funny disdain for certain subcultures, this episode is a must-listen.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Dumb Cool Weird.

Speaker 2 0:03

Podcast.

Speaker 1 0:06

Welcome to the Dumb, cool, weird Podcast. I'm Wes. This is Nick. We have a guest today. This is my friend, brian. Hello, we went to college together, but we also work in the film industry together and he's a cool dude, nice to meet everybody. He's just a chill guy. Yeah, he wanted to come on one of the episodes, so we're doing this one. We're wrapping up not the final part of Phantasm, but we're taking a break. We're going to get back to it next year. We kind of need to take a break.

Speaker 3 0:34

It's too much. This was the weaker movie and I'm not really doing too well. My brain hurts.

Speaker 2 0:40

Yeah, I got the good one.

Speaker 3 0:42

Yeah, you really did. You missed the whimsy and the wonder of the third movie.

Speaker 1 0:48

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 0:49

It's so funny that you say that the whimsy. It was like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, without all the slavery and the child murder.

Speaker 1 0:57

Yeah. So, Brian, what did you think coming in on the tail end of all these movies?

Speaker 2 1:03

Well, you know, there was a lot of exposition in this one, so it kind of helped A lot of flashbacks, like in Hercules With Kevin Sorbo.

Speaker 1 1:11

Yeah, well, you could definitely tell that the budget was a lot lower because they had to really rely on those flashbacks.

Speaker 3 1:16

I love. When we researched this film, we found out that Bruce Campbell was supposed to be in this film. I remember Reggie was supposed to team up supposed to be in this film, but I remember, reggie, we're supposed to team up, yeah and uh. I guess Bruce Campbell's uh agent just looked at this film and told him no, you're you're not doing this one, we know these look like films you like to do, but you're not doing this one, Bruce.

Speaker 2 1:35

It's funny Cause when I first watched it it was like that's the first thing I said.

Speaker 3 1:43

You haven't watched any of the other ones, so we just kind of made you raw dog this one. That was pretty great.

Speaker 1 1:49

Yeah, it's definitely an interesting movie. We usually watch a lot of movies like this. We end up watching movies like this, just really campy, horror, thriller movies. We like the ones from the 80s a lot. They're usually pretty good. We end up watching some classic ones from the 30s and 40s too, like we said, with like Bela Lugosi, but this is definitely one of those ones that's, you know, really had a big impact on me when I was a kid, because I saw all these on VHS back in the day and that was always fun, you know, do you?

Speaker 3 2:17

ever think about the fact that we, we all have kind of seen movies just like this, when we went to a blockbuster on a Friday or Saturday night, just hoping to get a good movie.

Speaker 1 2:27

Yeah, it was always like that. I mean these movies they permeated everywhere in these video stores Because back in the day there were blockbusters. But I remember the local video stores in your town.

Speaker 3 2:42

The local video store was special because it had the porn selection hidden by the beads.

Speaker 2 2:47

I've only ever had the Blockbusters. There was a Hollywood rental. Oh yeah, that one too.

Speaker 1 2:54

Yeah, they had Hollywood Video, they had Blockbuster, and then they had another one too. It was the third less popular one. Yeah, I don't remember what it was called. I think it was something planet or something planet hollywood?

Speaker 3 3:08

I don't think so. That's a restaurant. That's a restaurant I can't believe that's actually a restaurant I don't even is it still exists, or was that a joke?

Speaker 2 3:16

no, it's still good, it's still around yeah, it is was that stallone's place uh, does he own that?

Speaker 3 3:22

I think so, I thought it was like a stallone idea, it just seems like it's either a stallone stallone and schwarzenegger or something yeah, that does sound like a pretty dumb idea, but uh hey, at least stallone's cool I just always liked it, because you always see all the uh, all the memorabilia everywhere oh okay, it's like the hard rock cafe, except better.

Speaker 1 3:39

Yeah, all movie stuff so that was all the stuff, but yeah, so basically, um, like brian was saying, this is just exposition. The movie they kind of give you, they kind of do like a dump of the exposition of kind of who the tall man is. A little bit more you get to see like flashbacks of, obviously, the deleted scenes from the first movie yeah, like when they hang the tall man.

Speaker 3 3:59

and then mike, being so trusting, is like well, I can't let you bet down, you're killing the world and Tall Man's like. I'll promise to leave. And Mike's like really, and he just smiles and nods and he says boy, and then that's it.

Speaker 2 4:17

It was a solid Gotcha bitch.

Speaker 3 4:19

Yep, yeah that was like. Mike was way too trusting as a 16-year-old with mental issues.

Speaker 1 4:24

Yep, I mean, and we don't really see a whole lot of Reggie in this movie.

Speaker 2 4:28

He's there sparingly but it's mostly about Mike this time.

Speaker 1 4:32

I can't get enough of that hair. Yeah, the skullet.

Speaker 3 4:35

The skullet, oh my God, the skullet and ponytail that's amazing.

Speaker 1 4:39

And then the only other person in this movie that we get is this fucking chick who turns out to be a deadite. I mean, I guess we had the other, I guess we had the Cenobite in the beginning.

Speaker 3 4:48

Yeah, we had the Cenobite who crippled that cop. Yeah, but then tore off his face too.

Speaker 1 4:54

Yeah, we didn't really hear much from them. That was kind of just a quick scene, but we get, we get another. What was we get Jen for a little while, turns out she's a deadite and she has fucking Titty balls, you know yeah.

Speaker 2 5:06

The orbs coming out of her breast. It was pretty great yeah.

Speaker 3 5:08

Oh, and then they lobotomize Reggie's hand, yeah. They fucked his hand up and we find out A new secret About the orbs they can be defeated by tuning forks Like exploding, but not all of them, not all of them, not all of them, just that one.

Speaker 1 5:23

No, no, no and the tall man just gets frozen.

Speaker 3 5:26

Yeah. So the tall man is afraid of the cold because he can become frozen and because tuning forks make him instantly frozen. Make that work, it doesn't matter. We're just adding shit to the list of things the orbs can do or can't do, or what affects them.

Speaker 1 5:43

You know one of the things that we'll say about this movie. It seemed like the exposition was just long and drawn out. It seemed like the, you know, with each one of these scenes they were just taking parts from the old movie, putting them in there and they were just trying to pull this story out as long as they can, because we really, we really still don't have an answer of what he really wants to do with Mike. You know.

Speaker 3 6:06

Well, an answer of what he really wants to do with mike. You know well, we also got a little bit of backstory.

Speaker 1 6:08

Briefly on the tall man yeah, he's from the 1800s in the civil war?

Speaker 3 6:11

yeah, he was a just a normal dude yeah, yeah, it was a normal jolly guy and he was like I see too many dead people. What can I do? I want to play with dimensional stuff wasn't he like a doctor?

Speaker 2 6:23

yeah, he was like he'saker.

Speaker 3 6:24

Yeah, he was an undertaker and somehow a field medic. But I think those would go together back in the day where science wasn't real. Yeah sure.

Speaker 2 6:33

Yeah, going on with the exposition and all that stuff and how drawn out it was, it was like I didn't even know exactly what Mike was trying to do. Nope, no I didn't know what Reggie was trying to do. Nope, you't know what reggie was trying to do. Nope, you know, like you really don't get an idea of like what the what they're doing reggie's was a little bit more simple.

Speaker 1 6:51

Either it was to find mike or find someone to have sex with, sure yep, and the thing is like you would think that the other three movies would maybe explain this a little bit more, but they're they're not really that much better at explaining what's going on in these movies. It's literally like you know tall man does bad things. Reggie and mike go try to stop tall man.

Speaker 3 7:12

That's it the second movie was more like um, it was a little bit better. Third movie had a lot more whimsy, was a lot cooler, had a lot more fun scenes of the deadites and the home alone.

Speaker 1 7:26

Uh kid yeah, they had like a home alone, kid by the way, we don't ever get to see that part, you know yeah, we getting like snatched the glass by a deadite.

Speaker 1 7:36

Yeah, we never. We never get that resolved. That's a thing, brian. Like in these movies, things happen. They never get resolved with anything necessarily, and then they just keep on moving with the story. But the thing is, there's this overarching thing where the tall man is obsessed with Mike but we never really quite figure out what the fuck he wants Mike for Is quite figure out what the fuck he wants Mike for?

Speaker 2 7:55

Is this the last one, or is there one more after?

Speaker 1 7:56

this there's one more. We're going to do that one after the first of the year sometime, but it's just. You know that one's probably going to be the same fucking bullshit. It's probably just going to be drug out again. But you know the guy, he's already dead. The tall man died right after they made that fifth movie, porangus dead. The tall man died right after they made that, uh, that fifth movie, or angus?

Speaker 3 8:19

yeah, he died he was like in his 90s, so he died before they made it or after after they made it. They got one last movie out of them.

Speaker 1 8:23

Good, yeah, so if they make, if they make a sixth one, it's probably gonna be like either a cgi or an ai, like type of thing please just don't make another one.

Speaker 2 8:31

Yeah or just a mike lookalike. He takes over the job that he wanted yeah, there you, because he did get a little bits and pieces of that. The tall man wanted Mike to take his job.

Speaker 3 8:39

I also liked how Mike grew a few feet Yep To just choke Reggie Yep, his nightmare. That was pretty great.

Speaker 1 8:48

Yep, and that's, I mean, the overall story of this. It's very, very simple. It's literally just Mike goes after the tall man, reggie chases after him. He goes through dimensional portals, he meets up with his brother, jody, who's dead. They go to the planet of the apes planet. For some fucking reason.

Speaker 3 9:05

That was great though.

Speaker 1 9:06

Then they go to fucking downtown LA for some reason.

Speaker 3 9:10

That was a cool shot. No, that was funny, though, when I said the thing about COVID, and then he's like we got to get out of here. There's infection. Yeah, you'll get infected, it's like ah, 2021.

Speaker 1 9:20

Nice, yep. And then, right after that, they go to the Planet of the Apes planet and he looks over. He probably sees, like you know, statue of Liberty. He probably sees Taylor over there going like though because actually that scene that they shot in Planet of the Apes is actually probably that same area they were in, because that's where they shot that. They shot that on a California beach, so it makes sense.

Speaker 3 9:48

You maniacs.

Speaker 1 9:49

You blew it up.

Speaker 2 9:50

All the little cast of characters that just keep popping up that are pretty much stolen.

Speaker 1 9:55

Yeah, like we saw, you know the jaw, a lot of star wars the jaw was. He apparently was able michael's able to use the force. Uh, we saw a sand person. I swear to god, we saw a sand person.

Speaker 3 10:05

It was one of the uh. It was one of the deadites in a uh gas mask and the gas mask looked extra spiky yeah, like a uh sand person, sand person, yeah oh and then, uh, mike, a lot ofos. Mike also uses the Force to crush a scorpion and a hobbit.

Speaker 2 10:20

Yeah. He moves the rocks, that's right.

Speaker 1 10:24

Yeah, never uses that power again. Well, he did? I thought when he used the ball, the orb, yeah, yeah when he was fucking with the car, but he never used it in a practical way again where he could just crush the tall man.

Speaker 2 10:37

I wish he explained just a little bit of what he was trying to do.

Speaker 3 10:39

I didn't get I honestly thought he was going for a Back to the Future. You know, because he's fucking around with the engine and everything.

Speaker 2 10:48

It was funny because I thought he was trying to fix it and he just pulled the alternator. I was like what is he doing?

Speaker 3 10:53

I honestly thought he was going to make an interdimensional car.

Speaker 1 10:57

Wouldn't surprise me with this fucking movie.

Speaker 2 11:00

What's he called from? Oh my God, Austin.

Speaker 1 11:04

Powers. What's really crazy is we didn't get a surprise ending this time. So every time, Brian, at the end of one of these movies, the tall man always pops up and goes no, it's not, or it never ends, or oh, I'm here, boy that's usually.

Speaker 2 11:18

Yeah, that's pretty much. That's usually how they always end. It's like I was saying, it's like I'll be back. Yeah, pretty much, pretty much yeah, yeah, but the.

Speaker 1 11:24

I guess they figured this would be the last one for real, for real. But then I guess you know 16, actually it was 18 years later they're like oh, we're making another one. And then reggie and mike are probably like oh, really, really God damn it.

Speaker 3 11:34

Reggie was probably pretty excited. He's like, finally I get to get paid again For real, for real.

Speaker 2 11:39

It's funny because in real life they're just saying it. It's never going to end.

Speaker 3 11:42

It's never going to end. We're going to keep coming back. We're going to keep coming back.

Phantasm IV Review

Speaker 1 11:50

But seriously, the next movie me and him watched the trailer.

Speaker 3 11:53

It's a great C-level movie.

Speaker 1 11:55

It's a C-level movie, not B-level.

Speaker 3 11:59

Wow, b-level is not good enough. I mean, it's too good for them. Sorry, you know, that's where Bruce Campbell shines in solid, high-tier B-list movies. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 12:10

A lot of practicals.

Speaker 3 12:11

Yes exactly you know, and things that are actually good, because now Hollywood has the same level of CGI that a C-tier movie has.

Speaker 1 12:19

Yeah a lot of times it's because they don't want to spend the money. Cutting corners or the.

Speaker 2 12:25

CGI department like Slaves I guess yeah, or the company that they hire.

Speaker 1 12:29

Yeah, or the company they hire yeah, it just sucks. So we're talking about the dumb cool and the weird. What was dumb about?

Speaker 3 12:40

this movie.

Speaker 1 12:40

Right, it's kind of self-explanatory, right, the whole damn thing.

Speaker 2 12:42

It was pretty dumb. I would say what's dumb is just the storyline.

Speaker 3 12:45

There was no no-transcript from the first movie are just all deleted scenes from the first movie that they utilize. They're like how can we tie in all of these deleted scenes to make sense of how we're gonna go along with this?

Speaker 2 13:01

it just makes me wonder, like what were they gonna use those for?

Speaker 3 13:04

well, you know, I feel like the deleted scene where they they hung the tall man would have worked so much better than them trying to crush him to death with rocks, like they did in the first movie Like at least this would have made sense. It's like okay, we're just going to permanently hang him in this tree. And then Mike was retarded and he was deciding you know, I'm going to let the tall man off. You know he seems like a pretty chill guy, so what?

Speaker 2 13:28

happens when they drop all the rocks on him, he comes back.

Speaker 3 13:33

He's interdimensional. He always comes back, like at least with him being hung. He was just kind of stuck in this state of limbo Right and then, like I said, mike was like. Apparently he was like hey, I can't cut you down, you're killing the world. And he's like, but I promise I'll be really cool and leave. Then he doesn't Ha ha, Bye bitch.

Speaker 1 13:55

He deserves that job. So what was cool about?

Speaker 2 13:57

this movie.

Speaker 1 13:58

That's a hard request. I don't think so. I think every time these movies blow up a car, it's kind of cool.

Speaker 3 14:05

Okay, yeah, that's pretty cool. Yeah, you know what was cool? They got that whole entire street in LA.

Speaker 1 14:13

Yeah.

Speaker 2 14:18

You know, for a saw, for like with no, nobody, just nobody's there in the 90s uh, I thought what was cool was them trying to get reggie to be suave and hit on that girl, and I thought that was hilarious you know, his game really went downhill after movie two.

Speaker 1 14:32

It's pretty bad yeah, and I'm, I'm not gonna lie that I thought, like you know, and you know, the thing is there for a second.

Speaker 3 14:41

It seemed like he was gonna actually try to like do some some sexual assault and then he got yeah, that got really weird, he got really weird, that's the part where we're like okay, reggie has crossed over into this new area. He's on the Weinstein and High Hollywood executive list now.

Speaker 2 14:58

It was really strange her character because she was just really open after just meeting this guy.

Speaker 1 15:04

So then let's move into the weird she trusted a strange man, let's move into the weird part, then what was weird Her? She was weird, yeah, she was definitely weird I'm going to.

Speaker 3 15:12

I I mean, I understand that Reggie just saved your life after almost, like, causing you to die. Yeah, and now you're trusting a strange man telling you a story about like interdimensional old more like interdimensional undertakers who have been collecting the dead and bringing them to another dimension with compressed bodies and orbs. So you're just thinking, you know, this guy who looks creepy is telling you a creepy story after there's a creepy coincidence where he almost causes you to die.

Speaker 2 15:46

Yeah, this is the guy you should definitely get back into a car with get back in the car and then get to that abandoned motel room and then change in front of him and then have to answer without a top when you can just speak through the yeah, when you can speak through. Through the curtain and then sleep in the same bed with him.

Speaker 1 16:02

Well, obviously that was all planned, because she was a deadite the whole time.

Speaker 3 16:08

That's why she was so weird, I guess. I guess we overread that one.

Speaker 1 16:16

But it was weird. The reality is the whole fucking film series is just weird. The whole fucking concept of interdimensional midgets coming back to like, stop this guy and Star Wars, and Star Wars and a tall man that's from the 1800s, that was good, and then now he's not good, but he was good.

Speaker 2 16:35

I'm convinced 1800s that was good and then now he's. He's not good, but he was good. I'm kind of I just wish like the biggest weird part too is just like they went back and tried to figure out who he was and like didn't get any information.

Speaker 1 16:43

No, we never do they? They give you a little bit and then they just don't give you you know what, but it's not enough to really make any sense. I feel like my theory holds up.

Speaker 3 16:51

He went to the 60s and he saw how humanity was like just fucking weird and he was like you know what? I'm gonna be evil now? Yeah, well, 60s, a good decade, I don't know. Fuck the 60s. I hate hippies. I hate hippies and furries he's not joking I'm not. No, wes has almost seen me fight furries for less than just staring in my general direction.

Speaker 2 17:15

Yep, did you hear what one? So I was helping out at Meehan's and they had like a convention.

Speaker 3 17:21

Oh Jesus.

Speaker 2 17:22

We were hearing a story about, like, how a bunch got kicked out because one of them took a dump in the lobby.

Speaker 3 17:27

Yeah, this is why, like you're only giving me more reasons as to why we should open up a set of camps to help the furries concentrate. That's pretty great.

Speaker 1 17:36

Jesus. Well, on that note, that was Phantasm IV Movie. Fucking sucks.

Speaker 3 17:41

You know what?

Speaker 1 17:41

You could probably just skip this one.

Speaker 3 17:43

You know what that's it? He went and found furries and realized humanity needed to die.

Speaker 1 17:49

We're still talking about furries.

Speaker 2 17:51

I just don't even know what he did.

Speaker 3 17:54

No, he first. I just don't even like I don't even know what he did, like no, he really just went to the portal.

Speaker 2 17:57

Yeah, he's like I'm I, I just I'm evil. Now, yeah, like I don't understand. It's like did he go and meet like an alien overlord and found out his true powers, or what?

Speaker 1 18:05

yeah, because he just completely changed, because they literally like he just went through it. And then they were like oh, he never comes back when he goes in there and it's like what happened to him him.

Speaker 2 18:12

Everybody else is going through it the same way. It's like nothing's happening to them too. I don't fucking know, dude you don't get to know like, because you see him like learning and studying about the posts.

Speaker 3 18:22

Yeah, he's like pretty like. He's like he's very inquisitive. He seems like he's gonna go and do something good with this and then goes through and like, yeah, I'm evil now and that's phantasm oh, no, okay, actually, I do want to say something else. That was weird. Why did jody become evil all of a sudden?

Speaker 2 18:40

I think he was always evil, isn't he?

Speaker 3 18:41

I guess. I mean he seemed like he was pretty cool, I mean from the third one from what I got was he was entered in as an orb. Oh yeah, no, but he can't he. He was like a good guy helping them in the in the third movie, and now he's like I'm evil now, by the way, yeah.

Speaker 1 18:57

So it's just kind of like it is weird, it's a weird thing, you know.

Speaker 2 19:00

Yeah, it was just you know.

Speaker 3 19:02

There was a lot of weird in this movie Poorly written.

Speaker 2 19:04

It was just made to be made.

Speaker 1 19:05

Yeah, quick buck. They're just trying to get a quick buck off this. So, nick, you want to sign us out?

Speaker 3 19:13

Stay sexy Atlanta.

Speaker 1 19:15

And we're going to have Brian back again, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 19:17

Yeah, with a better movie, hopefully.

Speaker 3 19:20

Yeah, maybe an earnest one.

Speaker 1 19:22

Maybe you should come back and do some Christmas movies. That's what we're doing next month.

Speaker 2 19:25

Oh, I have a whole bunch.

Speaker 1 19:29

Yeah, so we're going to be doing Jack Frost 2, which is a Sequel to a horror movie.

Speaker 2 19:33

And then I have Christmas Vacation for mine. We're going to be doing Jack Frost 2, which is a sequel to a horror movie?

Speaker 1 19:36

Yeah, and then I have Christmas Vacation for mine.

Speaker 2 19:39

That was like they made a sequel to the Michael Keaton one.

Speaker 1 19:41

No, not that one.

Speaker 2 19:46

And I've got Die Hard and Gremlins, I'm going to have to think about mine. I'll let you guys know, let us know. Yes.

Speaker 1 19:51

Because we'll do a bonus episode, a bullshit bonus for you.

Speaker 2 19:54

Perfect, love it, yep.

Speaker 1 19:56

All right, bye-bye, bye, fuck off. Thanks for watching the Dumb, cool, weird podcast, where we cover some of your favorite movies in 20 minutes or less for your convenience. We go over what is dumb, cool and weird about movies and check out our Wayback Wednesdays. We do sometimes for other stuff, and please share us with your friends.